Suspense in Senate: Debt vote shrouded in secrecy

WASHINGTON -- Financial markets were watching, the retirement accounts of millions of Americans on the line.

Nervous senators were watching too, well aware that political fortunes could be on the line.

So on perhaps the most important vote of the year, the Senate did something extraordinary this week: It tried to keep the vote tally secret until the outcome was assured.

As lawmakers voted Wednesday on must-pass legislation to increase the government's debt limit, they dropped the parliamentary equivalent of a curtain on the voting as it was in progress.

Typically, roll-call votes in the Senate play out in a very public manner. People watching from the galleries or tracking action from afar via C-SPAN can watch democracy unfold in all its messy wonder.

Each senator's vote is announced by the clerk; each time a senator switches sides, that's announced too. Onlookers can keep a running tally of how it's going.

But not this time. Fifteen minutes into the vote, as captured by C-Span cameras, the tally clerk rose to recite the vote. A Senate aide alerted Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the six Republicans who later switched his vote from "nay" to "aye." McCain intervened, and the clerk sat right back down. "Would you ..." McCain said before the live microphone cut off.

A McCain spokesman denied the Arizonan intervened. "McCain didn't know that they weren't going to read the names and he didn't care if they did. He didn't have input on that," emailed spokesman Brian Rogers.

Senate leaders hoped they would get the necessary votes ultimately, but they were worried at the time and faced financial and political repercussions if the vote cratered in public view.

Both sides were concerned that investors might panic, causing the stock market to tank in real time. That's what happened in 2008 when the House voted to reject a Wall Street bailout plan, triggering a 7 percent drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Skittish Republicans had an additional concern: They knew the Democratic-backed legislation couldn't move forward without at least a few GOP votes, but none of them wanted to be left hanging out there alone on what could be a politically treacherous vote.

Whatever the reason, they kept the public in the dark while they worked things out. A Democratic spokesman later explained that Republicans requested the clerk stay silent so it would be easier for GOP senators to switch their votes.

No more announcing each individual "yea" and "nay." The running tally was known only by a handful of insiders.

What was clear, though, as the vote dragged on well beyond the allotted 15 minutes, was that Republicans were reluctant to help Democrats overcome a filibuster by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican and tea party favorite who set out to keep the Senate from even voting on the actual debt measure.

It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and the count was stuck at 58. The debt limit measure teetered on the brink of failure.

Cruz's insistence on getting 60 votes prevented the bill from being passed with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate. Had he not objected, the 53 Democrats and two independents who align themselves with Democrats could have done it by themselves without forcing any Republicans — particularly those up for re-election this year — to cast politically painful votes.

But now the filibuster vote was on. And the only way to know where the tally stood was to sit in the Senate chamber and track the vote of every senator, typically made with just a hand gesture.

It's a challenging task for even the most accomplished Senate watcher to perfect.

Nervous Wall Street traders and other interested observers were out of luck as the voted dragged on for more than an hour.

Financial markets floated softly southward as suspense built.

"We were very disappointed that Wednesday's change in Senate voting protocol kept us from giving the public real time access to this key vote," said Terry Murphy, C-SPAN's vice president of programming. "The tactic certainly gives the concept of legislative transparency a black eye."

Afterward, there was confusion. Initially, a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who runs the Senate, said Reid was unaware at the time that Senate procedures were being bypassed. Later, spokesman Adam Jentleson said Reid "consented to Republicans' request."

While acknowledging the media's concerns had merit, Jentleson couldn't guarantee a veiled vote won't happen again.

"After the vote began, it was quickly clear that Republican leaders were struggling to deliver enough votes ... and a potentially catastrophic default suddenly seemed possible," Jentleson said. "At Senate Republicans' request, the clerk did not call the names during the vote to make it easier for Republican leaders to convince their members to switch their votes."

So GOP leaders struggled to find the five GOP votes needed to help the Democrats overcome Cruz' filibuster.

Reporters crowding the chamber took to Twitter to describe the action, but the Senate was officially silent.

The decisive moment came when top Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, both up for re-election this year, stepped to the well of the Senate and voted "aye."

That appeared to put the tally at the required 60, but no one could be positive.

Had a Democrat skipped the vote to get out of town ahead of a looming snowstorm? Did the press gallery staff members who unofficially record each tally as a service to the media miss a crucial hand gesture in the initial flurry of votes?

A few minutes later, photocopies of the official tally arrived in the press gallery, showing that six Republicans had switched their votes in solidarity with McConnell, who faces a tea party challenge in a May primary.

The final vote — 67-31 — was posted on the Senate's web site. But information on who switched votes isn't available there.

"We are extremely concerned with the way the vote tally was handled yesterday on a pivotal debt-ceiling vote," said Siobhan Hughes, chairwoman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which represents the interests of Capitol Hill's print media. "When the vote tallies are not read aloud, it makes it harder for the media and therefore the public to get the information they need to hold lawmakers accountable."

The day's dramatic turn of events played out at a time when every action has taken on added significance because control of the Senate hangs in the balance. Some Republicans found themselves weighing their votes with one eye on the November elections and the other on primary-election challengers from the right.

It will take a net gain of six seats for Republicans to retake the chamber, something campaign watchers say is within reach.

McConnell, whose seat is one of the few controlled by Republicans that could flip to Democrats, was clearly loath to vote yes.

Predictably, he was blasted after the vote by hard right conservatives.

Cornyn, who initially voted "nay", switched to an "aye" right after McConnell, putting him squarely at odds with Cruz, his Texas colleague.

That the top two Republicans voted to advance the measure could take some of the sting out of the vote for embattled Democrats.

But it didn't placate those who felt the whole thing played out without the transparency such an important vote deserved.

Belgium gives children right to die

• NEW: Lower house of Parliament votes 86 to 44 in favor


• NEW: Open letter signed by 175 pediatricians called for more time to consider the issue


• The law would allow terminally ill minors who are in intolerable pain to choose euthanasia


• Stringent conditions would have to be met, including consent by the child's parents

(CNN) -- Does a terminally ill child in intolerable pain have a right to die? Belgian lawmakers said yes.

The lower house of the Belgian Parliament adopted a bill that extends the right to euthanasia for minors, the Parliament said Thursday on its official Twitter account. The law passed 86 to 44 with 12 abstentions.

That followed a vote by the country's Senate in December supporting the measure. The next step would see the bill go to the king, Philippe, to be signed into law.

The euthanasia bill is widely supported -- but has stoked fierce opposition from critics.

Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002 for those in "constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated." Minors were included in the original proposals but were left out of the final legislation for political reasons.

The new bill would extend the "right to die" to those under the age of 18 only under certain strict conditions, including that the child is judged able to understand what euthanasia means. Consent of parents or guardians must also be given.

Belgium's controversial euthanasia law

Professor: Doctors should not be killing

Belgian lawmaker backs child euthanasia law

Mother Linda van Roy, from Schilde, Belgium, is among those backing the bill.

She could do nothing to help her terminally ill baby, Ella-Louise, in the last hours of her life.

Ella-Louise, who was 10 months old when she died just over two years ago, would never have qualified for euthanasia.

But her mother had to watch as her baby -- who had Krabbe disease, a rare and terminal genetic mutation that damages the nervous system -- slowly faded away under palliative sedation, food and liquid withheld so her suffering was not further prolonged.

Children should 'have a choice'

"That whole period of sedation, you always need to give more and more medication, and you start asking questions. And you say, 'What's the use of keeping this baby alive?' " van Roy said.

She wishes she could have administered a fatal dose of medication to make the end of her daughter's short life come more quickly.

That's why she's campaigning for a change to Belgium's euthanasia laws, to give the choice of ending their suffering to older children whose bodies are wracked with pain.

"We want for those children to be able to talk about euthanasia and to ask those questions and if they really want to say, 'Stop, this is it, I don't want it anymore,' that they can have a choice," van Roy said.

Pediatrician Gerlant van Berlae of the Free University of Brussels is among the medical professionals backing the change in the law.

He told CNN that in practice it would make little difference.

Ethics of euthanasia

Deaf twins choose death over blindness

"Doctors do terminate lives, of children as well as adults," he said. "But today it is done in, let's say, a 'gray zone,' or in the dark, because it is illegal."

Pediatricians: No urgent need for this law

However, 175 pediatricians signed an open letter Thursday urging more time for reflection before any decision is made.

The letter argues that the law "responds to no real demand" and that most medical teams caring for terminally ill children would recognize that none of their patients has made a spontaneous and voluntary demand for euthanasia.

Meanwhile, medical advances mean that effective palliative care is available and that children do not suffer as they approach death. Extending the "right to die" to minors will only add to the stress and pain of families at a difficult time, it said.

The letter also questions how any objective judgment can be made on a child's ability to understand what's at stake.

The political process has created a "false impression" that a change to the law is urgently needed -- but in reality "the situation in our country is far from being dramatic," the doctors say.

Others also question whether children have the capacity to take this most final of decisions for themselves.

Palliative nurse Sonja Develter, who specializes in end-of-life care for children, told CNN she is concerned that giving children a choice would mean they made decisions based on what they thought their families wanted to hear, and that it would be a terrible strain for children who may already feel they are a burden to their caregivers.

'If you leave, you leave forever'

Izabela Sacewicz has Huntington's disease, a neurological disease that drastically reduces life expectancy in children.

Eight years ago she was a bubbling, active child -- top of her class, according to her mother, Iwona. Having recently turned 18, she can't eat or walk without help. She finds it difficult to speak, but her mind is still her own.

In a painful exchange, her mother explains to her what euthanasia is, using the simplest terms she can think of.

"Euthanasia means if you are unwell, you are so unhappy that you don't want to stay here, you want to leave, to go high up to God," she says. "But if you leave, you leave forever."

Izabela listens, the strain showing on her face.

"Do you think it's good, or not good?" her mother asks.

"It's not good," she replies, the words barely audible.

Iwona says that with enough support, no parent would think of euthanasia -- and that Belgium's lawmakers should instead focus on providing better support for families caring for terminally ill children.

Supporters insist the measure is more a matter of principle than anything else -- and that only a small number of children will ever, in practice, ask to end their lives through euthanasia.

Under its strict guidelines, no doctor would be forced to carry out euthanasia against his or her will and the child would always have the option of palliative treatment.

A child psychologist or psychiatrist would have to examine the child to make sure he or she is capable of making the decision.

In the Netherlands, where children have been able to request euthanasia with parental consent since 2002, only five children have ever done so.

Interactive: Euthanasia and the right to die around the world

Read: Opinion: Euthanasia: We can live without it ...

Read: Opinion: Euthanasia: Hope you never need it, but be glad the option is there

CNN's Bryony Jones contributed to this report.

Rand Paul's NSA Lawsuit Helps Him Lay Claim To A Big Issue

hide captionSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in front of the federal district court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014, where he filed his lawsuit against the Obama administration and the NSA.

Charles Dharapak/AP

By filing his lawsuit against the Obama administration, including the National Security Agency, over the intelligence agency's collection of phone-call data, Sen. Rand Paul now has ownership of a major issue in a way no other potential 2016 presidential candidate can lay claim.

Paul was there early and his lawsuit will help him prove that. While the best other Republican presidential candidates will be able to do is rhetorically inveigh against the NSA, Paul will be able to say he did more — he sued them.

The revelations by former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden have raised concerns, particularly among Republicans and many younger voters, about the potential for Big Brother-style government abuse.

By staking out a high-profile position on this issue Paul, a Kentucky Republican who filed suit along with Freedomworks, the Tea Party group, can increase his appeal to the segment of voters who've been most alarmed by the Snowden disclosures.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll suggested that voters are split in their support or opposition to the NSA program. Voters who identified as political independents, the type of voters who Paul showed particularly appeal to in his Senate race, are especially troubled by what Snowden revealed. Furthermore, younger voters opposed to the data-collection effort outstripped those who supported it by 12 percentage points.

The lawsuit also comes with a potential problem for Paul, however. As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reported, a well-known Washington, D.C. constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein, has complained that Paul's lawsuit contains his intellectual work. Paul's communications director didn't return my call or email request for comment. Fein also did not respond to my request to discuss the issue.

This conjures up the plagiarism controversy of last year that it seemed Paul had finally gotten past when he was accused of using others' lines in his speeches without proper attribution. So for Paul, the lawsuit may wind up cutting both ways.

What baby knows may freak you out

• Babies as young as 3 months old can tell right from wrong, researchers say


• The baby research was conducted at Yale University's Infant Cognition Center


• Researcher: Babies born as "little bigots, eagerly dividing the world into 'us versus them' "


• The research can influence how parents teach their kids to be "more moral"

Editor's note: Kelly Wallace is CNN's digital correspondent and editor-at-large covering family, career and life. She is a mom of two. Read her other columns and follow her reports at CNN Parents and on Twitter. Tune in to "Anderson Cooper 360" at 8 p.m. ET tonight to watch Anderson's special report: Baby brains: What are they really thinking?

(CNN) -- I'm thinking back to when my girls, now 6 and 7, were just a few months old. "Delicious" is the word that most immediately comes to mind. As I spent countless hours -- like any new mom -- looking adoringly at each of my daughters' chunky cheeks and dreamy eyes, I often wondered, "What is going through your mind?"

Turns out, maybe a whole lot more than I realized.

According to researchers at Yale University's Infant Cognition Center, also known as "The Baby Lab," babies can actually tell good from evil, even as young as 3 months old. That research is the focus of a three-part series this week on "Anderson Cooper 360," which airs weeknights at 8 p.m. ET.

To the skeptics who say, "Come on, how can an infant tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy?" -- I can relate. It certainly runs counter to our notion that children are born as blank slates and learn right from wrong entirely from us.

But the research paints a different picture. Puppets are used to demonstrate good and bad behavior. In one case, a puppet is struggling to open a box. Another puppet, the "good" puppet, helps it open the box, while another, the "bad" puppet, slams the box shut.

More than 80% of the times that experiment is conducted, babies will select the "good" puppet when presented with both puppets and given the chance to choose either one.

READ: What's your baby really thinking?

"Humans are born with a hard-wired morality, a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone," wrote Paul Bloom, Yale's Brooks and Suzanne Ragen professor of psychology, in an opinion piece for CNN.com.

Video Quiz: Do babies see good and evil?

Bloom, author of the new book "Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil," collaborated on the research with his wife, Karen Wynn, a professor of psychology at Yale University.

"We are naturally moral beings, but our environment can enhance -- or sadly, degrade -- this innate moral sense," Bloom said.

So now I'm wondering if, during those months when I thought my babies had zero clue about the world around them, I did anything I should not have done.

Lyz Lenz, a contributor to the parenting site Babble and mom of a nearly 3-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son, wonders the same thing.

"When I was pregnant with my daughter, I read a history of our cultural perceptions of the devil and watched a lot of 'Dexter,'" said Lenz of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, referring to the Showtime show about a serial killer.

PHOTOS: CNN: When they were babies

"Then, during my maternity leave, I watched all of 'Damages,' a show where Glenn Close plays an evil lawyer. So, what I'm saying is, if my daughter makes it to her 5th birthday without murdering someone, it won't be for lack of trying," joked Lenz, who also blogs for the site Baby Zone.

CNN's Kelly Wallace writes that she wondered what went through the minds of her children when they were infants.

Many women I chatted with over e-mail or on Facebook weren't really surprised to learn there's much more going on in the brains of our littlest ones.

Jessica McFadden, founder of the blog A Parent in America and mother of three, remembers when her daughter Alice was 4 months old.

"She would babble animatedly and -- I swear -- as if she were 'ticked off' at the large family photo hanging in our home," said McFadden of Silver Spring, Maryland. The photo was taken before her daughter was born and included everyone in the family -- except her.

"She truly seemed put out that she was not in the picture, and this was before she was even eating solids! When the photo was replaced with a new one including her, she squealed, smiled, waved her hands and would happily look at it each time she passed it," she said.

OPINION: Do babies know right from wrong?

Beth Engelman, a single mom of an 8-year-old in Chicago, recounts what happened when her soon to be "ex-mother-in-law" came to visit when her son was just a few weeks old.

"As soon as she picked him up, he cried and cried and cried. When she handed him over to me, he was fine, giddy, happy," said Engelman, co-founder of the blog Mommy on a Shoestring. "My siblings would say Jackson was an excellent judge of character, even at two weeks!"

The research does show, according to Bloom, that children just a few months old can judge a person's character -- siding with the "good" puppet and not with the "bad" puppet.

But Bloom said the research also shows something else, which gives this parent pause. Babies, Bloom said, are born with an inherent bias, and start off as "little bigots, eagerly dividing the world into 'us versus them' and strongly favoring their own group over everyone else."

"They prefer puppets who have the same tastes as them and they actually want the puppets with the different tastes -- they like other puppets who punish them," Bloom said during a Google+ hangout. "So early on, one of the most tragic aspects of humanity is how we split the world into 'us versus them' and we find this from the earliest age we can test."

Don't miss out on the conversation we're having at CNN Living. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest stories and tell us what's influencing your life.

Knowing this not only gives us more respect for what's going on in our children's minds, but also helps us as parents deal with certain moral issues, such as racism, Bloom said.

WATCH: Baby brains: What are they really thinking?

While it is important to teach children that humans naturally separate ourselves into groups such as families and friends -- and place more value on these people in our lives -- it is also important to clarify that it's not acceptable to value people according to group traits like skin color, said Bloom, who is the father of two teens.

"So if you realize kids come in a world with their own beliefs and judgments and propensities and expectations, it gives you more respect for them, and it also helps you parent them, helps you know how to make them into more moral people."

On that point, I loved what Lenz, the Babble contributor, said: "Children know the world is deep and dark and bright and beautiful. We don't have to teach them that. Instead, we have to equip them to slay the monsters and hold fast to what is true and good."

What do you think babies really know? Chime in below in the comments or tell Kelly Wallace on Twitter and CNN Living on Facebook, or share your photos and stories on CNN iReport!

Time Warner Cable, CBS are big market movers

NEW YORK -- Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market:

NYSE

Time Warner Cable Inc., up $9.50 to $144.81

Comcast Corp., the cable and media company, said it agreed to buy rival Time Warner Cable for about $45.2 billion in stock.

CBS Corp., up $2.76 to $64.61

The media company's shares hit an all-time high Thursday after reporting fourth-quarter earnings and revenue growth that beat expectations.

Skechers USA Inc., up $5.78 to $35.76

The footwear maker reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations due to higher demand for its shoes.

Orbitz Worldwide Inc., up $1.99 to $8.90

The online travel company posted a fourth-quarter profit, after posting a loss the year before, as customers booked more hotel rooms on its websites.

Cabela's Inc., down $5.55 to $64.26

The outdoor sporting goods company posted fourth-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations as ammunition sales weakened.

Nasdaq

Whole Foods Market Inc., down $4 to $51.46

The organic and natural grocery chain reported fiscal first-quarter profit and revenue that fell below analysts' forecasts.

Cisco Systems Inc., down 58 cents to $22.27

The seller of routers and software said weaker revenue and special charges weighed down second-quarter profitability.

LiveDeal Inc., up $2 to $9.88

The online deals company expanded its website into New York, offering discounts for restaurants and bars in the city.

As Takeover Hopes Fade, House Democrats Remain Upbeat

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hide captionRep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., right, pick up box lunches on Feb. 12 before boarding a bus for a trip to a retreat in Cambridge, Md., where House Democrats will hold strategy meetings for two and a half days.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., right, pick up box lunches on Feb. 12 before boarding a bus for a trip to a retreat in Cambridge, Md., where House Democrats will hold strategy meetings for two and a half days.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Democrats face a decidedly grim election season.

Their hopes of wresting control from the GOP look increasingly remote. Their legislative agenda is stymied. And some of their biggest liberal standard-bearers – Californians Henry Waxman and George Miller — are retiring.

So, as they hunker down on Maryland's Eastern Shore for their annual "issues conference" Thursday and Friday, why do they seem to be in such good spirits?

There was reportedly impromptu dancing to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's guitar playing Wednesday night. Leadership also engaged in some good-natured scolding of the press for using "Obamacare" as shorthand for the president's signature Affordable Care Act.

And members, who had high-tailed it out of Washington before the Wednesday night-and-beyond snowstorm shut down the capital, were filling their dance cards with pump-you-up sessions on the minimum wage, income inequality, and how to win over unmarried women. (Make that more unmarried women; it's a demographic already dominated by Democrats.)

Two reasons seem to explain why House Democrats seem so improbably upbeat: The Tea Party and cash.

"The Tea Party is probably what helps House Democrats get up in the morning," says Nathan Gonzales of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, which analyzes congressional races.

"When they look at a number of other factors – from their president's job rating, to some of their own colleagues who are retiring, the news isn't great," he said. "They are fueled by the Tea Party and a Republican-led House that appears to be constantly going too far."

To that point: before the Democrats headed to Maryland, Republican House Speaker John Boehner, stymied by his fractious caucus and facing another crisis over the nation's borrowing power, had to turn to the minority party to get a "clean" debt ceiling bill passed.

House Democrats, for that brief legislative instance, mattered. So heady was that moment that it prompted Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to suggest that perhaps a similar scenario could play out in the House on the issue of immigration. The Senate last year passed an immigration reform bill; the House has not acted.

"In this Senate ... we forged a coalition," Schumer said Thursday on MSNBC. "So in the House there's a lot of trouble because our Tea Party friends are very much against it, and while a lot of Republicans are the same as I believe they were on the debt, they want to vote no but hope yes, there's a real chance, I still think, to get this done."

Schumer was engaged in some mischief-making, considering that statistics show that the issue of immigration plays very differently in Republican House districts —the vast majority of which have 20 percent or fewer Hispanic constituents. And it would be a steep climb for House Democrats, currently outnumbered 232-200, to put together a majority on the issue.

California GOP Rep. David Valadao, who previously endorsed immigration reform, dismissed Schumer's proposal.

"Congressman Valadao does not believe there is sufficient support among House Republicans to support a discharge petition related to the Senate immigration bill, nor does he believe that is the best path forward," says Tal Eslick, his chief of staff. "He remains committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to provide a solution that addresses all aspects of immigration reform."

None of this chatter seems likely to translate into a fall victory for House Democrats. They need a net gain of 17 seats to win a majority; their best case scenario at this point looks to be a pick-up of a handful of seats.

While Obama and the Affordable Care Act remain the salient issues in most races, House Republican divisions that have led to majority party gridlock give the nothing-to-lose Democrats an opportunity to hit Boehner and crew for failing to move job, immigration and wage bills. Victimization has its perks.

Despite the cloudy November outlook, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been busily filling its coffers.

Year-end reports show that the DCCC raised close to $76 million in 2013, and had a balance of $29 million going into the new year.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, by comparison, raised $60.5 million last year, and reported $21 million in the bank at the end of December.

The president is scheduled to give the keynote address at the conference Friday midday, to a group of legislators eager to hear some good news on the health care law front.

More Ambassador Posts Are Going To Political Appointees

The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to, say, Hungary should be able to explain what the U.S. strategic interests are in that country — right?

But Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer and President Obama's appointee to be U.S. envoy to that European country, struggled to answer that simple question during her recent confirmation hearing.

"Well, we have our strategic interests, in terms of what are our key priorities in Hungary, I think our key priorities are to improve upon, as I mentioned, the security relationship and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..." she responded, grasping for words, to a question by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Jan. 16. (You can see the full hearing here.)

As McCain tweeted later about the confirmation hearings that day: "You can't make this up."

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hide captionTV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

TV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

President Obama used to say that he wanted to rely more on career diplomats to serve as U.S. ambassadors. But the State Department's professional association, the American Foreign Service Association or AFSA, says that he has named a higher percentage of political appointees than his predecessors. He's given plum assignments to political donors such as Bell, who have made headlines recently with embarrassing gaffes at their confirmation hearings.

The AFSA has been so worried about how ambassadors are chosen that it's drawing up a list of basic qualifications for the job: knowing, for example, what U.S. interests are in the country where they are going to work.

The report, to be released later this month, comes at a time when there's been increased scrutiny of Obama's picks.

The AFSA, which keeps track of appointments, says in his second term so far, Obama has named a record number of political appointees, more than half, as compared to other recent presidents, who tend to name donors and friends to about one-third of the ambassadorial posts.

Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, doesn't have anything against political appointees: His father was one.

However, unlike some of the campaign "bundlers" — wealthy fund-raisers who bundle contributions from a variety of donors — getting nominations in the Obama administration, Neumann's father was a professor of international relations, who had traveled and written extensively about the Middle East before serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

"He was an enormously competent appointee who served four presidents, three embassies and two parties, which is kind of unusual," Neumann says of his father. The two men used to joke that they "came into the foreign service together" — his father at the top and Neumann at the bottom.

So Neumann, who like his father served as ambassador to Afghanistan, tries to take an even-handed approach, saying all ambassadors, whether political appointees or career diplomats, need to be vetted properly.

"There is a law, which both parties ignore, about ambassadors needing to be qualified: the Foreign Service Act of 1980," Neumann points out. "People still get through even if they are manifestly not qualified."

There have been some particularly tough confirmation hearings lately, though. The same day McCain quizzed Bell, the Arizona senator was also perplexed when the nominee to become ambassador to Norway, hotel executive George Tsunis, described a party in that country's ruling coalition as "a fringe element." And then there was the recent grilling of Obama's pick for ambassador to Argentina.

At times it's a good idea to have someone with the president's ear out in key countries around the world. But Robert Silverman, president of the AFSA, says most other major powers don't do things this way.

"They send us career professional diplomats as ambassadors," he says, suggesting that "those countries know that career professionals are the people most likely to further their country's interests in the United States. It is a simple matter of sending the right people to the right jobs."

That's why he asked a group of former ambassadors — five political appointees and five career diplomats — to draw up the soon-to-be published list of the basic qualifications for U.S. ambassadors.

Average 30-year US mortgage rate up to 4.28 pct.

WASHINGTON -- The average U.S. rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage edged up this week to 4.28 percent from 4.23 percent but remains near historically low levels after declining during the five previous weeks.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average for the 15-year loan was unchanged at 3.33 percent.

Mortgage rates have risen about a full percentage point since hitting record lows roughly a year ago. The increase was driven by speculation that the Federal Reserve would reduce its $85 billion a month in bond purchases. Deeming the economy to be gaining strength, the Fed proceeded last month with planned reductions of its bond purchases, which have helped keep long-term interest rates low.

Recent economic data have pointed to a likely pause in the housing market's recovery. Real estate data provider CoreLogic reported last week that U.S. home prices slipped from November to December. And the year-over-year increase slowed, likely a result of weaker sales at the end of last year.

The number of Americans who have signed contracts to buy homes has plummeted to its lowest level in more than two years.

Most economists expect home sales and prices to keep rising this year, but at a slower pace. They forecast that both will likely rise around 5 percent, down from double-digit gains in 2013.

To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country between Monday and Wednesday each week. The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for a 30-year mortgage was unchanged at 0.7 point. The fee for a 15-year loan also remained at 0.7 point.

The average rate on a one-year adjustable-rate mortgage rose to 2.55 percent from 2.51 percent. The average fee declined to 0.4 point from 0.5 point.

The average rate on a five-year adjustable mortgage fell to 3.05 percent from 3.08 percent. The fee held at 0.5 point.

Senate Panel OKs bill to insulate contractors

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Labor contractors would be protected from some litigation under a bill that has cleared a Senate panel.

If passed, the bill would insulate primary contractors from any liability for the illegal practices of their subcontractors.

Republican Sen. John Schickel of Union is the bill's sponsor. He says the measure treats a subcontractor as a separate legal entity, which would be verified through the Labor Cabinet.

Opponents of the bill included Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan, who cautioned the committee that removing legal responsibilities from primary contractors would open the door to substandard safety practices at worksites and could deprive subcontractors of legal protection.

The measure cleared the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Tourism and Labor on a 6-2 vote Thursday.

The legislation is Senate Bill 81.

Chevrolet to oversee restoring sinkhole Corvettes

Chevrolet has taken on the job of restoring the classic Corvettes swallowed by a gaping sinkhole beneath the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky.

GM's head of global product development Mark Reuss said Thursday the damaged vehicles are some of the most significant in auto history.

He says the company wants to restore as many of them as possible so auto fans can enjoy them.

The sinkhole consumed eight prized cars like they were toys early Wednesday when the museum was closed. Six of the cars are owned by the museum in Bowling Green, Ky., and two are on loan from General Motors.

The cars include a 1992 white 1 millionth Corvette and a 2009 white 1.5 millionth Corvette.

Chevrolet says the restoration will be done in Michigan.

The weird world of 'unboxing videos'

On YouTube, an unboxing video showing the toys inside Disney-themed Kinder Eggs has attracted more than 35 million views.

• "Unboxing" videos are a growing and surprisingly lucrative genre on YouTube


• The videos show everything from electronics to small animals being removed from boxes


• There are 6.5 years worth of YouTube videos with "unboxing" in the title


• Unboxers can earn up to $4 per 1,000 views

(CNN) -- An enthusiastic male voice announces the new haul -- a dozen fresh Disney-themed Kinder Eggs -- while a disembodied hand rotates a fully wrapped chocolate treat for the camera.

The hand slowly peels the foil off the egg, cracks it open with a thumb and reveals the surprise treasure inside. It's Slinky Dog from "Toy Story"! The video lingers on the plastic pooch for a few seconds, making sure to take in every angle, then repeats the process with each of the remaining Kinder Eggs.

As far as popular videos go, it would seem to pale next to viral skateboard crashes, comedy sketches or music clips. And yet this video has been viewed more than 35 million times since it was posted to the FluffyJet channel on YouTube in 2012.

Welcome to the world of "unboxing videos," one of the many peculiar genres on YouTube, the Google-owned video hosting site where viewers watch more than 6 billion hours of video every month. The volume of unboxing videos has boomed in recent years. Easy to make and surprisingly hypnotic to watch, the videos have become a lucrative little corner of the Internet for the people who film them.

The most popular unboxings are for expensive gadgets, like the iPhone, Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Competition for these views is fierce. Tech-news sites rush to post their own slideshows and videos of brand new Apple products being birthed from their high-end packaging. Companies have even started uploading their own unboxing videos to official YouTube channels, like this clip of the new Xbox One from Microsoft that has been watched more than 3 million times.

Less well known are the secondary product groups, oddly specific areas where there is still plenty of room for YouTube entrepreneurs to stake their claim. Toys of all types are huge, including collectable figurines, Legos and Kinder Egg videos like those posted to the FluffyJet channel are hits. Makeup videos are a small industry unto themselves.

There also are unboxing videos for blenders, Uggs, coffee machines and live reptiles.

If you can buy it, there's probably an unboxing video of it.

Since 2010, the number of YouTube clips with "unboxing" in the headline has increased 871%. Last year alone, 2,370 days, or 6.5 years, worth of unboxing footage was uploaded to the site. The traffic is coming from all over the world, with an uptick in recent interest from such far-flung places as India, Brunei, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The people who post the videos are not just bragging about their latest purchases. They make money off ads displayed at the start of a clip or that pop up while they're playing. YouTube's payment system is complicated, but one unboxer said he can make $2 to $4 for every 1,000 views. Older videos don't necessarily fall off the search rankings, so a creator in it for the long haul can make more money as they add videos over time.

Creators only get paid per "monitized" view. That means visitors have to actually watch enough of the video for ads to appear. To keep people from abandoning a video before they've seen an ad, the videos have to be engaging, well shot and more than just SEO-keyword spam.

"It just needs to be long enough and good enough for people to stay to watch the ad," said the unboxer, who preferred not to be identified to prevent competitors from moving in on his categories. He currently has more than 2,000 videos on YouTube.

Unboxers look at Google Ad Words and YouTube search's auto suggest function to uncover popular search terms and name their videos accordingly. They might borrow the products, or buy and return them after the video is shot. Companies will even ship free samples to the more popular channels.

To keep viewers engaged, unboxers often bring a unique style to their product category. Some put their own personalities front and center, turning their faces into a trusted brand that brings back followers. Others have a specific shooting style that might favor time-lapse style footage set to catchy music, or close-up shots that pan lovingly over the unblemished surface of a new product.

In addition to pulling in search traffic, good unboxers can get large volumes of subscribers to their YouTube channels. Consistency and focus are key to luring in those repeat viewers, so some people will have multiple channels, one for each narrow category.

"If someone really cares about Kinder Toys and you also have chainsaws, they're not going to subscribe," said the unboxer.

It's clear why enterprising people make the videos, but what compels so many viewers to watch an amateur video of some stranger they don't know opening a box? What would compel a viewer to subscribe to the all-coffee channel and binge-watch a guy unpacking coffee makers?

One reason is purely practical. Unboxing videos offer an unvarnished and honest peek at commercial products. The glossy, heavily retouched images and videos companies share of their goods often vary from what's really in the box. People want to know what they're really getting, whether the product looks cheap or well made, or if there are more parts than advertised. It's research material for devoted comparison shoppers and collectors.

Some people actually find watching an unboxing clip to be satisfying and enjoyable. As any kid on Christmas morning can tell you, the process of ripping open paper and figuring out what's inside a package is half the fun. (Some YouTubers take the thrill to its literal conclusion and post videos of themselves opening birthday and holiday presents.)

FluffyJet's audience metrics say viewers are primarily adults between 25 and 44, half of whom are in the United States.

Kids are the primary target for toy channels, and the videos are shot accordingly, with bright colors, quick cuts and chipper narration.

Some viewers are parents who are playing toy-unboxing videos to entertain their children. The parents might not be able to afford all the toys, but their kids can watch the videos and dream.

"Toy unboxing videos are great because kids get to experience the opening just as if they were opening the toys themselves," said a FluffyJet spokesperson. "As for surprise unboxing videos, it is a real mystery, literally. Kids seem to love the mystery of seeing what's inside the surprise and seeing all their favorite toy characters."

More Ambassador Posts Are Going To Political Appointees

The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to, say, Hungary should be able to explain what the U.S. strategic interests are in that country — right?

But Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer and President Obama's appointee to be U.S. envoy to that European country, struggled to answer that simple question during her recent confirmation hearing.

"Well, we have our strategic interests, in terms of what are our key priorities in Hungary, I think our key priorities are to improve upon, as I mentioned, the security relationship and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..." she responded, grasping for words, to a question by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Jan. 16. (You can see the full hearing here.)

As McCain tweeted later about the confirmation hearings that day: "You can't make this up."

i i

hide captionTV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

TV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

President Obama used to say that he wanted to rely more on career diplomats to serve as U.S. ambassadors. But the State Department's professional association, the American Foreign Service Association or AFSA, says that he has named a higher percentage of political appointees than his predecessors. He's given plum assignments to political donors such as Bell, who have made headlines recently with embarrassing gaffes at their confirmation hearings.

The AFSA has been so worried about how ambassadors are chosen that it's drawing up a list of basic qualifications for the job: knowing, for example, what U.S. interests are in the country where they are going to work.

The report, to be released later this month, comes at a time when there's been increased scrutiny of Obama's picks.

The AFSA, which keeps track of appointments, says in his second term so far, Obama has named a record number of political appointees, more than half, as compared to other recent presidents, who tend to name donors and friends to about one-third of the ambassadorial posts.

Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, doesn't have anything against political appointees: His father was one.

However, unlike some of the campaign "bundlers" — wealthy fund-raisers who bundle contributions from a variety of donors — getting nominations in the Obama administration, Neumann's father was a professor of international relations, who had traveled and written extensively about the Middle East before serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

"He was an enormously competent appointee who served four presidents, three embassies and two parties, which is kind of unusual," Neumann says of his father. The two men used to joke that they "came into the foreign service together" — his father at the top and Neumann at the bottom.

So Neumann, who like his father served as ambassador to Afghanistan, tries to take an even-handed approach, saying all ambassadors, whether political appointees or career diplomats, need to be vetted properly.

"There is a law, which both parties ignore, about ambassadors needing to be qualified: the Foreign Service Act of 1980," Neumann points out. "People still get through even if they are manifestly not qualified."

There have been some particularly tough confirmation hearings lately, though. The same day McCain quizzed Bell, the Arizona senator was also perplexed when the nominee to become ambassador to Norway, hotel executive George Tsunis, described a party in that country's ruling coalition as "a fringe element." And then there was the recent grilling of Obama's pick for ambassador to Argentina.

At times it's a good idea to have someone with the president's ear out in key countries around the world. But Robert Silverman, president of the AFSA, says most other major powers don't do things this way.

"They send us career professional diplomats as ambassadors," he says, suggesting that "those countries know that career professionals are the people most likely to further their country's interests in the United States. It is a simple matter of sending the right people to the right jobs."

That's why he asked a group of former ambassadors — five political appointees and five career diplomats — to draw up the soon-to-be published list of the basic qualifications for U.S. ambassadors.

GAO recommends changes for student debit cards

WASHINGTON -- Small fees add up for college students using college-issued debit and prepaid cards, which are often used to draw financial aid, and congressional investigators on Thursday urged greater oversight of their use.

These types of cards are becoming more common on campuses and double sometimes as a student ID card. They are popular with both college administrators and many students because of the convenience, but using a third-party financial provider can also save colleges and universities money as they offer services such as distributing financial aid or making tuition refunds.

The Government Accountability Office said the fees generally are similar to those other debit cards charge. But, it said, some students end up with out-of-network ATM fees, and some cards have terms that charge a fee if students enter a pin number to receive money instead of signing to get cash back.

It says it's unclear how much money is garnered from these fees, but Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation staff members told GAO that it has received complaints from students of fees ranging from hundreds of dollars to more than $1,000, the report said.

The GAO says contract terms between colleges and financial institutions should be more transparent. Students are supposed to have convenient access to aid money, and GAO asked the Education Department to define what that means in terms of access to ATMs. It also called on the department to develop requirements to ensure students know all their banking options.

A response by the department included in the report said Education Department officials agree with the recommendations. The department has convened a rule-making session next week to address the issue.

The National Association of College and University Business Officers has issued "best practices" guidance to colleges and universities that encourages them to keep students' interests first, to negotiate low- or no-fee financial services and to make agreements transparent.

"Just as colleges and universities strive to provide high-quality academic experiences for their students, they must ensure that school-sanctioned services are also good consumer values," the guidelines say.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau notes in the report that in one survey of school officials, 69 percent of schools said they already make available their arrangement with financial companies that spell out the terms of the partnership between the school and the company servicing the debit or prepaid card. But the bureau said students can have difficulty finding that information.

In 2009, Congress passed a law that requires credit card companies to disclose relationships with colleges and universities. That law doesn't include college-issued debit or prepaid cards, according to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said in a joint statement that it was troubling that students could see a dent in the amount of student aid available to them because of debit and prepaid card fees.

"Congress curbed aggressive and lucrative marketing on these products, but financial institutions are now back on campus," said Miller, the ranking member of the House committee that oversees education. "They are pushing debit cards arrangements that are once again great for banks and great for colleges but can be terrible for students. "

But, in a statement, Richard Hunt, the president of the Consumer Bankers Association, said the report shows that, "arrangements with banks often benefit students and schools by offering reduced costs, convenience of use and valuable financial education." He said association member banks have relationships with colleges and universities that "offer students products with transparent terms and the freedom to choose the products and services they use."

At least 850 schools, or 11 percent of colleges and universities, had agreements to provide the debit or prepaid cards as of last July, according to the GAO. It said these schools tend to be large and represent about 40 percent of all secondary students.

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Follow Kimberly Hefling on Twitter at http://ift.tt/1hzJxhc

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Online:

http://www.gao.gov/

Ariz. bill on energy efficiency laws stirs debate

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- An Arizona proposal to prohibit local government mandates for energy-efficiency standards or green-energy use in new buildings is stirring debate.

State Sen. Chester Crandell, R-Heber, said his bill is an attempt to hold down construction costs and let builders choose what features to include in new construction.

Some astronomers say the bill could hamper efforts to protect dark skies if it is read as barring local governments from requiring low-intensity outside lighting.

"In fairness, lighting isn't mentioned, but all it would take is for some person to argue light is energy, and that isn't a real stretch of physics," Lowell Observatory Director Jeff Hall said.

Meanwhile, some city and county officials oppose the bill on grounds that it would crimp local control, the Arizona Daily Sun reported (http://bit.ly/1dL1L7M).

Crandell said the problem he's trying to address is that cities and counties adopt international energy codes that drive up the cost of a home under the assumption that the energy savings will pay for themselves in the long run.

"I think it ought to be an individual choice as to what the builder wants to put in," Crandell said.

Crandell said he would be willing to change his bill to add an exemption for dark-sky ordinances.

Hall was wary about a possible amendment, saying it would still require legal study to ensure it didn't impact astronomy.

Flagstaff City Councilmember Coral Evans said an amendment wouldn't be enough to eliminate her concerns.

The city is uniquely positioned as the international leader in dark skies, and astronomy supports an important segment of the city's economic base, she said.

"He and the proposed bill that he clearly supports will have very real and direct negative impacts to our city and our ongoing efforts to protect one of our most valuable economic resources — our dark skies," Evans said.

The bill has cleared a Senate committee and awaits further legislative action.

Jerry O'Connell: I'm sorry, too

Jerry O'Connell made a parody of Shia LaBeouf's performance art show, "#IAmSorry."

• Actors such as Jerry O'Connell are parodying Shia LaBeouf's apology exhibit


• O'Connell opened his own show next door to LaBeouf's


• Actor Emile Hirsch has also poked fun at the star


• O'Connell: "Everyone's talking about it ... it's hilarious"

(CNN) -- Shia LaBeouf isn't the only sorry actor in Hollywood.

After the 27-year-old announced that he's performing in an art piece called "#IAmSorry" this week in Los Angeles, actors such as Jerry O'Connell and Emile Hirsch are turning LaBeouf's apologetic saga into a punchline.

On Wednesday, O'Connell actually opened his own exhibit right next to LaBeouf's called "#IAmSorryToo" for Funny Or Die.

Shia vs. @MrJerryOC #IAmSorryToo http://ift.tt/1nwR5iB

— Funny Or Die (@funnyordie) February 12, 2014

.

BuzzFeed stopped by both LaBeouf's performance -- during which visitors take an "implement," such as a "Transformers" toy or bottle of cologne, into a small room where LaBeouf sits silently with a bag over his head -- and O'Connell's, and found that O'Connell could be guilty of plagiarizing LaBeouf's show.

Considering that LaBeouf is facing accusations of plagiarism with his "#IAmSorry" show anyway, O'Connell's rip-off of LaBeouf's exhibit is "is obviously the point," BuzzFeed notes.

Like LaBeouf, O'Connell's set-up involves a table of items that occasionally reference his career: where LaBeouf had nods to "Transformers," "Indiana Jones" and a copy of Daniel Clowes' book, "The Death-Ray," O'Connell included a DVD of "Stand By Me" and a toy kangaroo (2003's "Kangaroo Jack," anyone?).

But unlike LaBeouf, who never clarifies exactly what he's apologizing for, O'Connell was an open book. He, too, wore a paper bag over his head -- one saying "SUPER FAMOUS" instead of LaBeouf's "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE" -- but eagerly apologized for "all the world's ills" and even offered one guy a taste of his sandwich.

O'Connell explained to BuzzFeed that he wasn't doing it to upset LaBeouf -- in fact, he found the actor's exhibit pretty inspiring.

"Everyone's talking about it, whether you want to call it art or a real apology, it's hilarious," O'Connell said. "He's getting people talking. I'm all for this artsy gallery thing. It's fun to parody because all I have to do here is sit with a bag on my head, crying, and saying, 'I sowwy.' But I have to tell you; it's freeing to continually apologize like he does. I get it."

Emile Hirsch does too. The "Lone Survivor" actor went on a tweet-spree Wednesday airing all of his regrets.

"I AM NOT FAMOUS TO BEGIN WITH," Hirsch joked. "I AM BEGINNING TO FEEL SLIGHTLY MORE FAMOUS. ... I TAKE IT BACK, STILL NOT FAMOUS."

And then: "I AM...CONFUSED ABOUT HOW FAMOUS OR NOT FAMOUS I MIGHT POTENTIALLY BE...ANYMORE... I AM...ACCIDENTALLY ON CAPS."

Just in case LaBeouf thinks Hirsch is laughing at him instead of with him, the actor clarified that "IN ALL FAMOUSNESS THOUGH, I LOVE SHIA, WHETHER OR NOT HE'S FAMOUS. ... I AM SORRY I EVEN SAID SORRY. NOT GONNA LIE, I AM ONLY ABOUT FIFTY PERCENT SURE OF MY ORIGINAL (FIRST) SORRY."

In December, LaBeouf was accused of plagiarizing Daniel Clowes' "Justin M Damiano," in his short film, "HowardCantour.com." The actor at first said that he'd been so absorbed in the creative process he neglected to give Clowes proper accreditation, but then he was also accused of plagiarizing his apologies.

All of these regrets makes us wonder: who do you want to see apologize next?

New model for robots: termites

Scientists designed these robots to react their immediate environment.

• Small robots can behave like termites to build structures


• The idea might be applied to send robots to space


• These robots have wheel-legs called "whegs"


• Project was launched at Harvard University engineering school

(CNN) -- Human construction projects are generally centrally planned, with people in leadership roles supervising how everything is put together, and builders aware of the overall progress.

But termites and other animals go about building in a different way, working independently. Each termite reacts directly to what it encounters, rather than having a preconceived notion of what to do. Collectively, the insects can create a mound much larger than themselves.

"They do all of their coordination indirectly, by changing their shared environment," says Justin Werfel of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

Werfel and colleagues used this model of decentralized, reactive building to create robots operating under those principles. Robots that behave this way could be useful for construction projects that would be too dangerous for humans, such as underwater research stations or in outer space. Another possible application would be building levees out of sandbags in flood zones, Werfel said.

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"If you had a robot system to handle that kind of building automatically, that would let you keep people out of harm's way," Werfel said.

The findings are published in the journal Science and presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting this week.

These robots are small -- 4.7 inches high, with a footprint of about 4 x 7 inches. The "bricks" that they can manipulate, made of expanded urethane foam, are bigger than these critters: 8.5 x 8.5 x 2 inches.

Researchers created algorithms governing the behavior of the robots, so that they know what to do when they encounter specific situations. It's not the blueprint that guides the robots, but rather these predefined simple rules.

The construction begins with a single "seed" brick in a particular location.

The robots can move forward, backward and turn in place. They were designed to be able to climb up or down a step that is the height of one brick and build staircases with the bricks to get themselves higher up.

Importantly, these robots only detect bricks and other robots that are in their immediate area; they have no idea how far along the overall structure is\ or what more distant robots are doing.

"Robots obtain information about where bricks have been attached only through direct inspection," researchers wrote.

The design of the robots in this research wasn't intended to be "cute," although they may appear that way -- some researchers call them "frog-bots" or "squirrel-bots," said Kirsten Peterson, a co-author on the study. They have rounded features for the sake of simplicity and using less material.

The robots have four types of sensors, Peterson said. A pattern-recognition system, composed of seven infrared sensors, can detect black and white patterns on the bricks and helps with navigation.

In addition to tactile sensing, the robots have a pattern recognition system, an accelerometer to sense tilt, and five ultrasound sonar units to detect other robots and help maintain distance from the perimeter of the structure.

To move around, the robots have wheel-legs called "whegs."

This study did not optimize the robots for speed. It took three robots half an hour to build a "trident" structure with eight blocks, Peterson said.

A decentralized system of robots has some advantages over a centrally planned method of building. If individuals perish, the plan doesn't fall apart, because it doesn't depend on how many builders there are.

When everything is planned out, you'd have to go back to the drawing board if some of the robot builders bit the dust. But a decentralized system readily adapts to the loss of participants, Werfel said, just like what happens in nature with termites.

"If half the colony gets eaten by an aardvark, the rest can carry on," he said.

There are still some engineering challenges that would need to be solved to ramp this up to large-scale projects on Earth, the study said, but Werfel said it's conceivable that designing robot systems such as these for disaster zones would in the realm of years away, Werfel said.

For more extreme environments such as other planets, scaling these kinds of robots up to the task might take decades, Werfel said. But conceivably the principle of this study could be applied to send robots to build a base on Mars.

If they build it, maybe we will come.

Cabinet to be formed within hours if minor hurdles crossed

BEIRUT: If minor differences over some portfolios are resolved, Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is expected to announce a national unity Cabinet Friday following a compromise between the Future Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement over the Energy Ministry, political sources said Thursday.

The row over the Energy portfolio, which has held up the Cabinet formation for weeks, was resolved in a series of phone contacts between caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil and Nader Hariri, head of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s office.

Under the compromise, Bassil, who has insisted on retaining the Energy portfolio, will be allotted the Foreign Ministry, while Tashnag MP Arthur Nazarian will replace Bassil as energy minister, a political source told The Daily Star.

Bassil will also double as acting energy minister, the source said.

Nazarian belongs to the parliamentary Change and Reform bloc, whose leader MP Michel Aoun was adamant on retaining the Energy portfolio for Bassil, his son-in-law.

Under Salam’s proposed 8-8-8 Cabinet lineup, which is based on the rotation of ministerial portfolios among sects and parties, the Future Movement MP Samir Jisr will be allotted the Interior Ministry, while the Defense portfolio will go to caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Samir Moqbel, the source said.

Caretaker Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil from Speaker Nabih Berri’s parliamentary bloc will be named finance minister, while March 14 MP Butros Harb will be allotted the Telecommunications Ministry, the source added.

Berri’s bloc will also get the Public Works Ministry portfolio, the source said.

Caretaker Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour from MP Walid Jumblatt’s parliamentary bloc will be named health minister.

Media reports said the Economy Ministry would be allotted to the Future Movement, the Labor Ministry to the Marada Movement, and the Information portfolio to the Kataeb Party.

It was not immediately known what ministerial portfolios Hezbollah would get in the new Cabinet.

However, minor differences remained over the distribution of some ministerial portfolios that could delay the birth of the new Cabinet as rival political parties are jockeying for the Public Works and Justice ministries.

Berri is scheduled to begin a weeklong Gulf tour Friday afternoon and his presence at Baabda Palace before the announcement of the Cabinet lineup is essential according to norms.

Therefore, if the speaker leaves Beirut without visiting Baabda Palace, this would signal a delay in the Cabinet formation.

Aoun’s agreement to allot the Energy portfolio to a member of his bloc removed the last major hurdle holding up Cabinet’s formation.

The FPM leader has repeatedly rejected the principle of rotating ministerial portfolios, arguing that it is unconstitutional and aims solely at stripping his party of the Energy Ministry, currently held by Bassil.

The concept of rotating ministerial portfolios was part of a political deal to form a new Cabinet based on the 8-8-8 lineup. The deal was reached last month by the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition, the Future Movement, and Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party in a bid to break the 10-month-old Cabinet impasse.

Aoun and March 8 parties have threatened to withdraw from a fait accompli government, a move that would have plunged the country into further political turmoil. Meanwhile, President Michel Sleiman said he hoped political leaders would recognize the dangerous phase the country was passing trough which he said should stimulate boosted cooperation toward the Cabinet formation process.

He also said that a new Cabinet would revive the executive branch of government and serve as a political umbrella for Lebanon and the Lebanese.

Sleiman’s remarks came during a meeting he chaired with several high-ranking security and judicial officials.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and caretaker Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi attended the meeting at Baabda Palace.

The meeting discussed the Lebanese Army’s recent discovery of a terrorist cell and its prevention of security incidents including car bombings and suicide attacks.

The attendees agreed on the need to maintain cooperation among security agencies including the exchange of intelligence.

Mikati struck an upbeat note on the Cabinet formation.

“So far, it seems that there are positive and good matters. The Cabinet may see the light of day soon,” Mikati told reporters after meeting Beirut Maronite Archbishop Boulos Mattar.

He called for national unity to save Lebanon “especially under these very difficult circumstances.”

“We hope this matter will be translated very soon through the formation of a Cabinet at the earliest possible time so that it can begin its work at all levels,” Mikati added.

Separately, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah is set to address the Lebanese live on the party’s Al-Manar TV station at 8:30 p.m. Sunday on the anniversary of the assassination of the group’s leaders Imam Mughniyeh, Abbas Musawi and Sheikh Ragheb Harb.

In addition to the Cabinet crisis, Nasrallah is expected to touch on the growing threat of takfiri groups following the wave of deadly car bombings and suicide attacks that targeted the group’s strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa town of Hermel over the past few weeks.